I’ve already received emails from a few nurseries – Raintree and Trees of Antiquity – saying they’re taking orders for 2017, and like many of you, I’m sure, I already have a list going of what I’d like to order. After trying most of the nurseries, I think I’ve narrowed down my preferences to Bay Laurel, Trees of Antiquity, England’s Orchard and Nursery, Century Farms, and Nolin Nursery. They seem to be the most consistent. The others have various problems, such as Starks not saying the rootstock, Raintree tending to be small or root-hacked, etc…
Good question. My orchard is getting pretty full so my needs are small, and I am a convert to grafting now. I have a bunch of grafted trees that should be big enough for the orchard next year. But will likely graft a few more. I mostly need to find a source for a small number of European plum rootstocks.
Fall 2016 / Spring 2017 I plan to order scion wood to continue testing the feasibility of long term pear growing in Kansas. Looking for crops and methods of growing them that will improve the land.
Matt, I live near CVN, and always pick up trees directly from the nursery. I just got off the phone with Nick at CVN. They are still in business, but no longer taking orders online. Anyone can still place retail orders, you’ll just need to call the CVN office directly to do so. They can be reached at 931-668-4153. Nick said peach tree orders should be placed asap as they sell out quickly.
To answer the original poster’s question, I’ll likely place orders with Burnt Ridge, and possibly CVN, depending on what I decide to plant.
I’ve planted a bunch of K-1and K-5 rootstocks this year, so next year I will be grafting to them. I also plan to buy more rootstocks, probably from Cummins and Raintree. I also expect to buy trees locally: from Fowler and some DWN trees from local retail nurseries.
I’m sure I will get another muscadine from Isons Nursery and Vineyard. If I add another fruit tree and it’s not a fig, it will most likely come from Just Fruits and Exotics in Florida.
I’ve personally had excellent results from material shipped by Big Horse Creek Farm, Century Farm, Trees of Antiquity, Cummins, Bay Laurel, Arboreum, and Raintree. I’ve also received excellent apple bench grafts from Greenmantle and scions from Maple Valley, Masonville, and FedCo.
I generally prefer the idea of grafting onto more mature rootstock; this also gives me the opportunity to immediately create a multigraft tree by grafting several varieties to well developed branches. I plan to use most K-1s to experiment with apricots that grew from seeds — grafting 4-5 different apricot scions to one K-1 rootstock will save me a lot of space. By now all the rootstocks have developed 4-5 good branches with nice angles. K-1s are going gangbusters, they grew extremely well. Most K-5s are doing good except for a couple: one was sickly from the beginning and eventually died and another was destroyed by a gopher.